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April 30, 2009

Give it up for Nate Silver who won Blogger of the Year as given out by The Week magazine's Opinion Awards.

He's also interviewed by Childs Walker of the Baltimore Sun. The first questions are nothing new but it gets better as it goes along. Nate talks about the latest in sabermetrics, the parallels of baseball and politics and how he got started with his blog fivethirtyeight.

April 29, 2009

Despite those four wins on Sunday, the self-esteem of DC sports fans hasn't been too good lately. But it got a big boost last night in Game Seven at the Phone Booth with the Capitals 2-1 win over the Rangers.

Now hockey fans get the Ovechkin-Crosby match up. As the Toronto Star puts it:

Alexander the Great versus Sid the Kid.Yeah, the NHL can probably sell this one.

April 28, 2009

With the latest SABR bulletin now being received by members, and the Convention web site providing new info, we're starting to get the first glimpses of the Convention activities here in Washington.

Wednesday is a chance for members to sit on the Board of Directors meeting or head to Nationals Park for a tour. On Thursday, mark 2 p.m. as the time Christina Kahrl will give a special presentation. The always fun to watch trivia contest will start at 7:30 pm.

Friday features a Donor Breakfast, a Former Player's Panel, and then the trip to Crab Cake City. The Awards Luncheon on Saturday is at 12:15 followed by a Negro Leagues veteran's panel. At 7:30 the trivia champ is determined.

If you've never been to a SABR Convention, you're in for a real treat. In addition to the above activities and all the research presentations, the most fun part can just be hanging out with your fellow baseball buddies and meeting the person whose blog you have been reading.

April 27, 2009

I'm not sure what you would call it, I'm not sure it means a whole lot, and I'm not sure anyone except pollyannish me has noticed it, but it is definitely worth getting on the record that the Capitals, the Nationals, DC United and the Washington Freedom all won yesterday.

Speaking of four winners, DC Decider decides those who do go to the Nationals games this year will need comfort food. Chelsea Bauch and Matthew Borlik look at four of the better food stands at the ballpark. I would add Five Guys hamburgers up on the second level and a plan B if Ben's Chili Bowl has long lines, which it usually does.

April 25, 2009

Sitting on a shiny new park bench in Georgetown Waterfront Park this morning, it occurred to me there is another reason to love living in Washington. There's an abundance of parks and water.

With the mercury soaring through the sixties, Roberta and I went to the park to kill some time before seeing the movie Earth. The theater, my favorite in the area, is across the street from the park at the foot of Wisconsin Avenue. Turns out the Charlie Butt Regatta (Virginia high-school rowing teams) was being held. We didn't mind because it gave the park a life we had not seen on previous outings.

For years this 10-acre patch in the shadow of the Key Bridge was a very unattractive part of the city. I think the parking lot was the one seen in the 1987 movie Suspect.

Phase I is completed and can be seen in our pics below. Phase II will finish the work. A Wisconsin Avenue Plaza will include a water fountain and a stairway to the river. We saw a bulldozer in place.

The movie is stunning. I watch all the National Geographic shows and I have never seen some of the scenes and animal movement they captured.

Fresh on the heels (no pun intended) of reading Catcher, I picked up Bruce Weber's, As They See Them: A Fan's Travels in the Land of Umpires. What a brilliant pairing of subjects, these two positions on the field that are a large part of each and every game, and yet, these authors had no problem breaking new ground.

The weird thing about As They See Them was the way I came into it. After reading Catcher, I was trying to figure out what to read next. Weber did an interview with Fresh Air on NPR, but I said to myself, I don't know, a book about umpires? But my better half made a point of listening to the NPR story because I had sloughed it off. She found it quite compelling and bugged me to listen to it on the computer. So I finally did.

Wow, was I ever wrong. Surpassing both Morris's book and and Fountain's History of Spring Training, this is my early candidate for baseball book of the year.

Weber, a writer for the New York Times, attended the Evans School for Umpires in Florida, worked some lower level games, interviewed "about a third of the umpires who worked in the major leagues in 2006 and 2008" as well as some big league players and others in the industry. His book covers a lot of ground, including just how tough life is in the minors, what other books have been written on the subject, the rules, the changes in the strike zone, the re-vamping of the union and much more.

This is not only a great book, but a much-needed one. As the author notes, "the last book-length reportorial look at umpires, The Best Seat in the House But You Have to Stand by Lee Gutkind, is more than 30 years old.

As far as criticism, some photos would have been nice, and having no index is very disappointing. Also, the author seemed content to not mention the timeframe when things were taking place.

But all in all, As They See Them is as enjoyable as a well-called baseball game.

April 24, 2009

With a shirtless POTUS on its May cover, Washingtonian magazine has achieved the desired, everybody's-talking-about-it effect. The downside, however, is that the controversy is overshadowing the fact that the cover piece is very well done. Well-written essays accompany some of the 26 Reasons to Love Living Here. In addition to their staff, contributors include a Senior Fellow, journalists Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, and authoress Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Some of the reasons, such as Our Kids Speak Many Languages, are actually ones that can, of course, be found in other major metro areas. Several, such as You Can See the Sky, The Obamas Are Our Neighbors, and We Have a Reader's Paradise (The Library of Congress), do stand out as unique to Washington.

As far as my "I would have included" list, how about urban walkability? In The Option of Urbanism, Christopher Leinberger identified Washington as having the most regional-serving walkable urban places (per capita) in the U.S. The main factors are metro and smart growth planning like in Arlington.

Some tweaking is needed too. The hockey Capitals are reason number 9. But the fortunes of teams, like the players, come and go. I would have listed the diversity of the sports teams here, with the combined total of the Big Four, men and women's professional soccer, the Mystics of the WNBA, the college teams of Maryland, Georgetown, AU and George Mason, and even having Tiger's PGA tournament and Congressional Country Club in the U.S. Open rotation.

All in all, a great issue. Myself, I read the Washingtonian for the articles...

April 23, 2009

The latest issue of Washingtonian touts 26 Reasons to Love Living in Washingtonand a shirtless President on the cover. Some are hot under the collar about the inappropriateness of said photo.

A poor choice? Probably, but get your copy before they are gone, and don't laugh too hard at those of us who still read paper magazines...

Free Digital TV

Lucky Washington gets to be the first U.S. city to receive free mobile digital TV for laptops, cell phones, handhelds and in-car entertainment systems. The first broadcasts will be like those beamed to TVs, including advertising. The target date is set for late summer and will consist of CBS, NBC, PBS, Ion and Fox. Mobile DTV will be available to about 2 dozen other cities by the end of the year, to include New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston and Atlanta. -Gear Live

World Championship Triathlon

Washington, DC will serve as the only North American stop for the Dextro Energy Triathlon ITU World Championship Series, an 8-city triathlon series that will determine the top triathletes in the world who will go on to compete in the Olympics. The Washington, DC race will take place Sunday, June 21, 2009 and will be open to both amateur and professional triathletes. - Run Washington

Next Big Thing

The design was released this week for the new National Children's Museum at National Harbor. Scheduled to open 2013, will include a glass atrium, wall of living plants and wind turbine. National Harbor will also host a sneak-preview center, called the Launch Zone. According to the museum's web site, their mission is to inspire children to care about and improve the world.

Tiger's In Town

Tiger Woods was in town on Monday to promote his tournament here in July and visit President Obama. In the interview with Thomas Boswell, a relaxed Tiger revealed knowledge of the Nationals and baseball. Is the world's greatest athlete a closet Nats fan? Maybe, but he said, "I'm addicted. I'm a huge Yankees fan."

The SABR Convention website now has the optional events on sale. They include the Awards Luncheon with Stan Kasten, tours of Nationals Park, a "Language of Baseball" talk by Paul Dickson at the Smithsonian, the Friday game between the Red Sox and the Orioles, a Potomac Nationals (A) game and a Southern Maryland Blue Crabs game.

Here's my two cents worth on each one.

Banquet

The banquet meal is a pretty cool thing, a fan-bonding, feels-like-the-center-of-the-baseball universe get-together that caps the whole shebang. My favorite one was in San Francisco. Jon Miller emceed and had the crowd eating out of his hand. In Milwaukee, Bud Selig spoke. You can't go any higher up the chain, but I kept thinking someone else would have been more enjoyable. Players are colorful too but in Boston, the talk got to be too much "good ol days."

$60 for Stan Kasten? I dunno, too bad it's not Frank Howard. There are other speakers such as Christina Kahrl which should be excellent.

Ballpark Tour

The Nats won't be in town, probably a good thing. This opens up the ballpark for tours and the one of Nationals Park is excellent. The regular cost of the tour is $15 so you save $10. I would take the tour with Phil Wood, he's a walking Washington baseball encyclopedia and good speaker (works for MASN). Also, if the tour doesn't cover it, be sure and walk around to the south side of the park and check out the historic timeline.

Language of Baseball at Smithsonian

If you are here on Wednesday night, the Smithsonian Event should be good too. Paul Dickson is one nice gentleman and a prolific baseball author. It's certainly convenient, either the Orange or Blue line metro, one stop away or a walk of about 15 minutes. If you do walk, be aware that thunderstorms can pop up and pose a hazard.

Bus to Camden Yards.

I would highly recommend taking the noon departure. The 4:30 leaving will hit the rush hour traffic. Baltimore's Inner Harbor is a fun place to walk around with the Aquarium and crab cakes.

Minor League Baseball

Potomac Nationals. Good thing it is on Saturday because the weekday traffic along I-95 south of the Beltway is horrible. Their ballpark is a tin can but it is a cheap night out. A shame there's not a game at Bowie, that is the nicest park as far as the minors in the area.

Blue Crabs - Haven't been there. Heard the new park was nice but kind of out by itself in a spiritless, suburban setting.

April 21, 2009

Chris Epting is the author of The Early Polo Grounds (see yesterday's review). He answered these questions about his book.

What prompted you to write this book?

Since I was a kid growing up in New York, I have always been fascinated by the Polo Grounds. I never saw it (it was torn down in 1964, when I was two), but I'd study photos of it and as a Little Leaguer and would sometimes imagine what it would be like to play in such a peculiar-shaped, historic ballpark. Writing the book is, for me, a sort of Valentine to the place--but also a chance to document some Polo Grounds history that I hope will be new for a lot of fans.

How did you hook up with the Images of Baseball series?

I've done six books for Arcadia Publishing (who publishes the series) and am currently working on another, The Historic Ballparks of Los Angeles, which comes out Spring, 2010. They are a great company and I really enjoy working with them.

The thing I enjoyed the most about your book was that I had not seen some of the photos. Are some of them in fact never-before-seen?

I believe that many of them are very rare and are being made available to a mass audience for the first time.

Other than a vintage poster from 1887, you have nothing on the original Polo Grounds just north of Central Park. I have to tell you I was disappointed about this because the title even implies the book would be about the original Polo Grounds.

I hear you--Polo Grounds (and ballpark) purists understand the deep history of the place and the different locations. I'd hoped the cover photo would represent that this featured the more "modern" structure--and sadly, so few shots of the Central Park-adjacent park exist so that even if I'd wanted to, it would have been all but impossible to structure a book around it (this series demands many photos). All that said, sorry if it mis-led you!

He's doing great. I was so honored that he wrote the foreword, which I will say is one of the most beautiful baseball essays I have ever read. Just last week, I visited with him to record an interview about the Polo Grounds and you can hear it here:

I read where Citi Field was supposed to pay homage to the Giants and the Polo Grounds with a "Coogan's Landing" section beyond the left-field fence? Do you have any info on that? Do you think the Giants were slighted in that it appears the Mets' owner bathed the place in Dodger memories, but just that one thing for the orange and black?

I read the same thing a couple of years ago and had hoped that the Polo Grounds/Giants would have been better represented in the new park - if they were going to incorporate the history of the team's origin(s), I think it should have been more balanced.

In March you wrote a piece on the efforts to restore the John T. Brush Stairway, saying the makeover of the park will happen soon. What kind of timetable can fans expect? Are we looking at 1 to 2 years or perhaps longer?

Based on what the NYC Parks and Recreation Department told me, it will be as soon as the full funding is reached so hopefully it will be sooner than later. It's hard for them to date because it does require some more money.

Epting note: I have a few more Polo Grounds postcards--if your readers would like a signed one, they can shoot their address to chris@chrisepting.com.